


After

by KyeAbove



Series: The Reinforcement Of Agony AU [128]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Angst, Dysphoria, Father-Son Relationship, Past Character Death, Past Miscarriage, Some Fluff, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyeAbove/pseuds/KyeAbove
Summary: Agony:HellHenry finds a tape Wally recorded back before the studio went to hell. It raises many concerns.





	1. The Tape

**Author's Note:**

> This is a two-part story. Second two-parter for this series too.

~Unknown~

* * *

 

It had been nestled in a corner. Just a tape. Not even in a recorder. Luckily for him, when Henry had grabbed his own tape from its hiding spot soon before, he'd taken the recorder too. Henry had found this tape while searching for more supplies, and richer in only bacon soup, this tape seemed all more like a treasure. Now, hiding in a little miracle station, Henry could listen to his treasure.

Henry opened one of the cans to sip on, wondering if the bacon soup still tasted good even though it was all he'd eaten for ages because it was just that good, or because he knew he'd have to eat this for longer and pretending it tasted good was the only way to keep sure. Brushing aside that thought, Henry slipped the other tape from the recorder, and slipped in this unknown tape. He pressed play, and immediately recognized the voice.

As it all clicked to an end, Henry pushed his bacon soup aside to helpfully consider what he'd just heard. He'd already stopped sipping it as soon as he recognized the voice as Wally's. Wally sounded so disappointed for most of the tape. Henry knew it was because Wally loved his job. Wally loved the attention and the appreciation and the problem solving some messes would give him. 

Then, his tone grew fearful, near the end. Fearful to outright devastated with those two words. ' _Oh no.'_

It couldn't have been that big a deal if Wally hadn't brought it up any time now. Most likely, it was something Wally ate, or really just a flu, or even both. And yet, Henry was already scrambling out the of the station, booking it through the hall. He needed to get back to the safehouse  _now._ If any ink creature dared attack him now, they'd regret it. 

Because only Wally could disaffirm what that devastation meant, and Henry didn't want his real, undenial guess to be true. 


	2. The Confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This won’t make much sense unless you’re caught up with the rest of the series' stories before this, if you dropped in without reading the rest. The entire series is like that, but this is one that especially needs the context seeing as this casually references a few previous stories and concepts in the series, and I stop not for context. 
> 
> I do hope I did this right and respectfully.

No amount of running could give Henry enough time to think things through.

Wally had never mentioned anything like this. Not even an offhand reference to a sickness that scared him enough to bring up dying. And if he’d been dying, it wouldn’t matter much now that Wally was ink. If it was the other thing...

Even though he didn’t expect to, Henry made it to the safehouse area in record time. Only did then his aged body catch up to the strain, and protest, and Henry had to lean against a wall. Panting, and numbly pained, Henry stopped to think, and panic and wonder how the hell he was going to hold this conversation.

Henry needed to know though, so there was no putting it off.

And if he was wrong, he and Wally could just laugh it off as a silly mistake.

Once he caught his breath, Henry stood in front of the safehouse door and knocked. This conversation must have been fate, because it was Wally or Boris who pulled the switch to open the door, and now stood in front of him. Henry hoped it was Wally who was in control, because Henry couldn’t have this conversation with Boris.

“Wally?”

“Yes?” That was a relief. Wally must have noticed how tense Henry seemed, because he himself was starting to look tense. “Is there a problem?” Panic then crept in. “Everyone else is out. Is one of them hurt?!”

Henry stepped in through the door, resting a hand on Wally’s arm.

“No.” At least that Henry was aware of. “Everyone is fine. You say _everyone_ is gone?”

It really was fate, wasn’t it.

“Well, no.” Wally relaxed a little. “Bendy’s sleeping in the hammock, and Jack’s somewhere, but Sammy’s out looking for either his old mask or his glasses because he wants to be able to see properly and the Projectionist went with him, and that other Searcher is off doing who knows what, and Striker is out somewhere too…why?”

Henry stepped around Wally, and then walked towards the table.

“I listened to a tape you recorded. We’re going to have to sit down for this.”

“Huh? What tape?” Wally followed Henry to the table, and they sat across from each other, Wally still clearly confused beyond all hope.

Henry tried to picture Wally back as his human self, and that was who he was talking to, not a sorrowful soul molded into the image of a cartoon. But nothing changed that it was a Boris copy sitting, waiting. Clearly worried, and in the dark.

“The one where you were talking about being sick.” And Wally’s ears perked up that, and his body language was  suddenly much less inviting. So, Wally knew where this was leading, and Henry was sure he already had his dreaded answer “Wally...were you…were you going to be a father?” It was awkward and unreasonable, but from Wally’s tone in the tape just somehow spoke of it. Maybe it was father’s intuition, on Henry’s own part, catching that fear.

Tension grew, and in a second, Wally lowered his head to the table, putting his arms in the same place. Wally’s ears were drooped, and his whimper was the saddest possible, and Henry knew he’d struck agony.

And truth.

Henry wasn’t going to press, until Wally himself spoke of the matter. If he even spoke at all. But Henry understood why Wally wouldn’t have brought this up before. And it was all up to Wally now. Minutes dragged on, distant ticking of the clock framing their time. Time spent worrying, and morning.

Finally, Wally seemed ready to talk.

“I had a scare, at least.” Wally raised his head, his ears still drooping. “Joey kinda got the idea in my head. I probably wouldn’t have thought about it myself, and well…” Wally breathed in, and then out. “But as much as the very idea makes me uneasy and _wrong_ , I think I’d rather be on the outside with a little surprise than be here.”

Understandable. Nobody wanted to be here is this studio. Everyone wanted to get out alive.

“Just a scare?” Wally’s reaction to the question seemed too emotional for ‘just a scare’, but maybe other memories were attached to the false fear? It just didn’t seem likely. Henry was sure of the truth, and it saddened him.

Wally looked away, staring off into nothing, and then decided there was no point in hiding, and shook his head to reaffirmed his claim.

“Okay, so I’ve been pretending for a long time that it was just a scare, but I know it wasn’t.”

Wally stood up from the table, starting to pace back and forth as he told his woes.

“I started getting sick in August, nineteen-thirty-four.” Which Henry figured now was when Wally recorded the tape. “I was in denial for a bit, and then when I accepted it, it felt wrong, physically.  I’d made a huge mistake.” Wally laughed at little, mockingly, at himself. “Then, I started figuring, hey, Mister Claude, and Shawn's dad are like me, and they've both had kids. Murdoch too seemed fine with his single kid. I knew I could do this, once!”

Wally’s shoulders dropped, and he started crying. Henry stood up from his own seat, intending to hug Wally. While details had been light, Wally was rather clear that he hadn’t seen 1935 in humanity. So, there were a few sad conclusions Henry could come to.

But Wally backed away from Henry’s heart, content in his misery. Instead, Henry let his own sadness sweep him, even as he thought up a new question.

“Who would have been the other father?”  
  
Because while Henry didn’t want to think about it, but he also needed to know who’s head he might have to knock in. Wally looked at Henry with a rather shameful look, and tears continued to pool from his eyes.  
  
“Well... Matt and I got together on my eighteenth birthday.” Which wouldn’t be too bad, since Henry recalled that Matt was a generally good person. “I’d kinda forgot for a bit that it’d happened even though I was often told the first time is supposed to be meaningful...” 

Henry only had one question for that.  
  
“How drunk were you two?”  
  
“A shot each of whiskey. Nothing much.” Maybe thinking the table chair was somehow too far away, Wally sat himself down on the ground. “A lot happened after my birthday. Grant disappeared some time in July, and many people didn’t like that. I didn’t like that. So many things happened and the memory got swept under the rug.” Wally put his hand to his face. “And then I was suddenly getting sick.”

Henry sat himself down beside Wally on the floor, and rested his hand on Wally’s shoulder.

“When did you lose it?”

Wally finally maintained eye contact with Henry, and talked on and on.

“Something...something bad happened to me, and I was regulated to staying in the infirmary until Shawn finished his work shift and could take me home. And just to be sure my head wound wasn’t going to mess with me. While I was talking with Matt, I started having some intense pain. I thought it was...that thing...and I’d assumed I’d been thankfully wrong about having...and I was just really sick and worryingly late...but it was the worst one of my life, and it kept getting worse, and it was _different,_ and it was so.. _._ Later on, I was talking to Virginia when she invited me over, and I mentioned it, and she upright told me I must have miscarried.”

Finally, Wally went for the hug he so desperately needed, bending awkwardly to rest himself on Henry. Wally had almost always been taller than Henry, when they met they were of equal heights and Wally only grew from there, but the transition to being a Boris copy had left him even taller.

Henry rubbed Wally’s back, before asking another important question.

“You weren’t very far along, were you?” Wally hadn’t specified when the accident had occurred, but since Wally only made it to October 1934, there was very little room for life.

Wally gripped Henry tighter, somehow, without crushing him. Gentle misery.

“I was about three weeks along. Not much, but it was enough for me to take notice. And I got attached to the idea for like, a day or two. The mere thought of getting...and then I maybe was...but I wasn’t just going to try to toss away it away like that.”

“Did you want it?”  
  
Wally nodded.

“I would have had the kid, since I had a cousin who tried...well, it killed her. And really? I couldn’t see myself doing that to myself or…” Wally looked off, pulled away from the hug, and then looked down at the floor, and then himself. At the second body he’d been trapped in. “I’m a man, no matter what my body was, and men don’t get knocked up. Not usually. Henry,” Wally’s pie-cut eyes showed more emotion than any animation could have shown with them. “I had a lot of problems with it, but I wanted to be a dad. I did want the baby.”  
  
Henry knew the loss of a child. One he’d tucked into bed, and carried around, and showed all sorts of new things every day. Wally never even got that chance.

“Did Matt want the baby too?”

Wally shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know. I never was able to tell him. I tried...that day, but I got interrupted, and then lost the baby anyways, so...but I think he figured it out on his own.” Wally grabbed the ring strung around his neck. “Could be why he chose to propose when he did. Even though I know he really loved me, and it wasn’t just him being honorable.”

Wally cracked a smile, even as his expression otherwise stayed miserable.

“Kinda funny Matt was the other father, seeing as I once jokingly bet Sammy I’d name my non-existent first child after him..since I lost that bet, and it wasn’t so non-existent...Sammy James is what I would have named the kid. Probably would have called him James to minimize confusion. Not sure about a girl. Probably a similar name. Or the same names. Or Matt would know of one he’d like.”

“James…” Henry repeated, and with a name, he tried to picture Wally once more. Happy, with his family he’d tried to make for himself.

Wally wiped away his tears, the heaviness of them having lessened as the conversation went on.

“Can you not tell anyone? I mean, look, Sammy would just get weird and confused.” Sammy had never expected to have grandchildren, seeing as Matt was _Matt_ , and London wasn’t attracted to any people very much. While happy his granddaughter Evelyn existed, Sammy still seemed terribly confused by her existence. If Sammy was going to ever find out about this, Wally would rather tell Sammy himself.

“Of course,” Henry promised, and Wally dove for another hug. “Your secret is safe with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It hasn’t been touched upon yet in the series, but Sammy really is confused by being a grandfather. In his world view, his God gave him a gay child, and another child who wasn’t quite asexual but though attraction was pointless, and Sammy was 100% cool with that.


End file.
